We have been working lately with Jason.J and few other people to create first real Open Source ESC that is based on STM32 RISC processors. Just moment a go courier delivered first PCBs to my desk here at jDrones and we are thrilled to see how they start perform after assembly has done for these.
OpenESC pcbs are 35 x 25mm and 4 layers PCBs. Power range will be around 20-30 Amps depending on MosFETs in use.
Software development has already started for these boards and first flights tests are planned to be in about 1 month or so.
Later these PCB boards will be placed on sale for people want to assemble their own ESCs, we will also have component sets for those or you can buy parts from your local stores. Yes, we will also provide these ESCs as fully assembled for people who are not so good with soldering.
Speaking of soldering. It's time to take your magnifying glasses and start to assemble first boards.
Jani / jDrones
Comments
For all, you can follow our development in Google Code and also Google groups where email traffic is running. Or by just giving OpenESC on Google search. All files are fully public and they are now in SVN repository. Software is forming already.
@Jeroen, really nice looking boards you have, you should join to our dev groups.
@Sergei boards will have USB, UART, PWM and I2C at least on first releases but it is evolving project so other methods like CAN bus can be introduced later. On first boards we did not expose CAN so well yet.
With these first boards we will find what are best ways to interact with them and they will be our main development boards. Next revision will be more mature and have missing things added so please keep posting more questions and we can create the best ESC out there :)
Nice, any schematics ? Just interested how you designed the hardware. and detailed photo's ?
And what kind of BEMF sensing technique do you use ?
I'm waint for the PCB supplier for my own ESC, I made one PCB with 4 ESC's and power plane but they can be easily cut into seperate ESC's (link)
I assume one of the command interfaces is I2C. If so, is there isolation between the I2C signal bus ground and power ground? This has been a serious issue with the ESC's we've been using (also for PWM/PPM-controlled ones..).
Lots of potential for improvement vs existing ESC solutions.. I'm very excited about projects such as this.
hummm... do I see nice pads in there to connect to a programmer or will you have a special connector in place to update the firmware? You should really invite SimonK to code for this... think of all the possibilities! :)
I really like this a lot!
Keep us posted!
Excellent. Jani, is there any chance that these could be used as the brains" to control a high power/high amp power section?
I recently blew up the ESC in my big helicopter, and I need to replace it. I can't find anything on the market that does what I want. What I really want is a high V and A "dumb" ESC, which I can then control externally using my own external governor. But no ESC such as that exists.
There are high V-A ESC's available specifically for helicopters, but typically they do not deliver the governor performance I want (at least not without spending BIG bucks). Nor are they capable of bi-directional communication to APM. Also, if you put them in dumb mode (no governor) and then try to drive them with an external governor, they may respond too slowly. I've seen some evidence of that.
Basically, I want either a really dumb ESC that will respond quickly to an external governor. Or I want a really smart ESC that has a tunable governor, and capability of bi-directional communication.
So...
If I just buy a bunch of FETs, can I solder them up and control them with your board?
Looking forward to seeing more developments on this Jani. Do you have any updates on the camera?
Looks cool :-)
What are the expected prices for the assembled versions?